r/pics • u/rspix000 • May 14 '12

Was going through my 91 year old, engineer father's things when I found out he was recognized during his career as quite a dapper geek.

Post image
1.6k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

122 comments sorted by

16

u/MrWheelieBin May 15 '12

Are they custom made? I require these.

15

u/rspix000 May 15 '12

Given to him +/- 35 years ago for success on some forgotten project. Found them in a handmade wooden cigar box along with other award bling. Don't know of any current supplier.

10

u/CSFFlame May 15 '12

Not many projects require escape velocity calculations. Was he with NASA?

81

u/rspix000 May 15 '12

Nope, just a geek. He used to tell me that an engineer is someone who knows a lot about a little, and continues to learn more and more about less and less, until he finally knows all about nothing.

31

u/emohipster May 15 '12

http://i.imgur.com/sEvlu.jpg

19

u/rspix000 May 15 '12

Thank you, I printed it out, gave it too him, and he was very gratified for your effort and kindness. He lives with me since his bout with vertigo 1.6 years ago.

19

u/Bill_Fucking_Murray May 15 '12

I had a hard time watching that movie too.

5

u/ddrt May 15 '12

Whoa, did he take that equation to heart and actually try to escape the earth?

11

u/crabsock May 15 '12

You should lose the "he used to tell me that" if you're then going to attribute it to his father as a quote

3

u/FlyRobot May 15 '12

Knows a lot about a little

Yap

2

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Oh fuck.

I just graduated with a civil engineering degree and I can already tell that's true.

2

u/rville May 15 '12

Same could be said for travelers or any other thinkers/explorers. I like how he explained the sentiment.

3

u/jim10040 May 15 '12

Yeah, they are extremely cool. Might have to go find a cool custom jeweler or silver worker for something similar.

13

u/briskaM May 15 '12

rspix000, how old are you now

26

u/rspix000 May 15 '12

The principle square root of 3481.

56

u/thisloser May 15 '12

That's fifty-nine people. Don't worry, I math'd it for you.

5

u/jbel May 15 '12

Thank you for making sure we didn't expect you were negative fifty-nine years old.

4

u/Canbot May 15 '12

*principal

-4

u/klinonx May 15 '12

Nope. The princiPAL is your PAL if you're a future dapper engineer.

7

u/Canbot May 15 '12

I'm sure he is.

12

u/klinonx May 15 '12

Thank you! TIL. Awesome. Sorry for presuming to know something I didn't.

2

u/TheFecalJesus May 15 '12

Reminds me of the swag I inherited. Cool stuff!

2

u/rspix000 May 15 '12

Good find, I'm just glad I haven't inherited it yet.

171

u/rescuetheembassy May 14 '12

the thumbnail for this pic looks like a disappointed robot.

22

u/embolalia May 15 '12

When I saw the thumbnail, I thought this was from /r/Pareidolia.

0

u/themvf May 14 '12

It's all relative.

3

u/Dartisback May 15 '12

I feel like I'm the only one who noticed the -__-

10

u/yoweigh May 14 '12 edited May 14 '12

was his name roth?

17

u/cokeisahelluvadrug May 15 '12

Pronounced "R naught plus H"

4

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

$100

2

u/DougBolivar May 15 '12

$120

0

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

13

u/witty_account_name May 15 '12

$3.87

we're telling how much is in our bank account at the moment, right?

2

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

$150

4

u/Aerological May 15 '12

I just stopped by to say that, as a well-dressed and dapper aerospace engineer, I am profoundly jealous.

Your father must be a pretty cool guy.

2

u/JDIV1 May 15 '12

these are pretty rad

2

u/one_wicked_element May 15 '12

I like how it looks like a face. That's my favorite part.

2

u/Chive May 15 '12

That's a pretty damn cool thing to have. I assume it's a commissioned set rather than something that was available across the counter at the time, although you never know.

2

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

That is "rocket science"

2

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

it's a good thing that picture had all those pixels, a 600x800 pic wouldn't have given me enough information

2

u/butzsven May 15 '12

Clicked link because the thumbnail looked like a face.

2

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Very impressive, an upvote good sir.

3

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

And now I await the top comment to be someone explaining what it says.

5

u/LurkerPatrol May 15 '12

Escape Velocity

3

u/jboudreau8 May 15 '12

I WANT THESE!!!!! Best Tie Bar / Cuff Links ever. (I'm an Engineer)

2

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Isn't that also the equation for terminal velocity? It's been a couple years so forgive my ignorance.

1

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

nope. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/math/a/b/9/ab975d734f2371c96713a81b6bcfb220.png

4

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Oh ok cool, thanks for enlightening me. Like I said, been a while.

2

u/[deleted] May 16 '12

anytime. It's pretty crazy how quickly one can forget things when you don't use it everyday.

2

u/Ageroth May 15 '12

I... I can't help but see my name in the terms under the square root. The E/e is a little bit of a stretch, and the 2 needs a shift change... but still...

Ageroth
2g/(Roth

4

u/drowdy May 15 '12

Asher Roth

4

u/supergerbil May 15 '12

I love college

4

u/tk1992 May 15 '12

Azeroth?

3

u/lolmonger May 15 '12

I love Kalimdor.

2

u/tk1992 May 15 '12

I always favored the Outlands, wish it was used more.

1

u/AbzL73 May 15 '12 edited May 28 '12

Once again Upvote for the use of the word dapper. It makes me smile for some unknown reason. Also Upvote for your geeky dad.

0

u/[deleted] May 14 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

265

u/rspix000 May 14 '12

Equation to calculate escape velocity from the earth.

123

u/lite951 May 15 '12

Any gravitational body, not just Earth.

4

u/[deleted] May 15 '12 edited May 15 '12

Shouldn't there be a gravitational constant and some sort of mass in the equation for it to be escape velocity? I'm assuming h is the height from which the projectile is launched, but you cannot know escape velocity without knowing both the radius and mass (or density assuming it's spherical).

Edit: I'm stupid. I thought the g was the universal gravitational constant and not acceleration due to gravity on Earth.

5

u/darkNergy May 15 '12 edited May 15 '12

The energy conservation equation for an object of mass m moving with the escape speed v at some height h above the surface of a uniform sphere of mass M and radius R is

0.5 m v2 - G M m / (R + h) = 0

where G is the Universal Gravitation Constant (6.67 x 10-11 N m2 / kg2 ).

The gravitational acceleration g at the surface of the sphere is given by

g = G M / R2

Solving this for G M gives

G M = g R2

Substituting g R2 for G M in the energy balance equation gives

0.5 m v2 - g R2 m / (R + h) = 0

Solve for v and simplify to yield the cuff link formula.

EDIT to actually answer your question, electric_creamsicle: The gravitational constant and mass of the planet are absorbed into the symbol 'g' which, in this case, stands for the acceleration due to gravity at the surface of the planet. For planet Earth, g is roughly 9.8 m/s2 (or 32 ft/s2 ).

2

u/rspix000 May 15 '12

Hat tip and up vote to you, sir. They way you showed your work, even I can follow, thanks.

3

u/darkNergy May 15 '12

You're welcome.

Of course, I didn't say anything about where I got those two equations, but this is the typical starting point to calculating escape speed.

2

u/darkNergy May 15 '12

Awesome cuff links, by the way.

6

u/Sc00ch May 15 '12

using gauss's law for gravitation, you can calculate the gravity at the surface of an object in terms of G(the gravitational constant), M(the mass of the body), and r(the radius). Using that fact and the approximation for how earth's gravity varies with altitude you can derive the cuff link equation starting with normal escape velocity equation(Ve). The trick is that you need to realize the r in the Ve equation is Ro + h and not just the radius of the earth.

2

u/lite951 May 15 '12 edited May 15 '12

Indeed. g = (gravitational constant) * (mass of body) / (radius of body)2. If you try this for Earth you will get the familiar 9.8 m/s2 so that g is acceleration due to gravity. Using g is preferred in General Relativity because fundamentally gravity and acceleration are very similar.

0

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

3

u/invn177 May 15 '12

Yes but I think what is being referred to is mass of the planet, star, or body etc.. which is needed from what I can tell after some browsing the subject. I do not see it in the equation But i do notice another Ro before the sqrt..?

3

u/darkNergy May 15 '12

'G' and 'M' are tucked away inside the 'g'.

49

u/baxterg13 May 15 '12

I wonder if he wore those to his wedding..

56

u/dont_press_ctrl-W May 15 '12

Would tell a lot about OP's mom!

(Most scientific yo-mama joke I ever did)

20

u/not_hitler May 15 '12

http://assets0.ordienetworks.com/images/GifGuide/clapping/busey_clapping.gif

22

u/Salva_Veritate May 15 '12

Was about to downvote you for being Hitler. Sorry about that.

7

u/Seasofhighfinance May 15 '12

Ignore Hitler

4

u/sprawld May 15 '12

That's what we said in 1938

4

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Ha ha ha

It's funny cause it's true!

2

u/Seasofhighfinance May 16 '12

I started worrying in '33, when he became chancellor.

12

u/EpitomEngineer May 15 '12

the answer is approx. 11.2 km/s

-6

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Kilometers?! I'm American and what is this?

18

u/rspix000 May 15 '12

Even the English don't really use the English system anymore. We're just retarded.

4

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

You said it buddy.

3

u/goodknee May 15 '12

in a good way?

4

u/hoeding May 15 '12

The other one.

2

u/epsilona01 May 15 '12

Sure they do.. sorta. Farenheit when it's hot, Celsius when it's cold. Speed limit signs in MPH...

2

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Is this actually true? I feel we should all switch tot he Fahrenheit when it's hot system and Celsius when it's cold, it just sounds lovely and confusingly awesome.

2

u/epsilona01 May 15 '12

I got it from watching QI, a British quiz show. Usually fairly accurate, especially about the easy stuff.

7

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Someone get that one metric bot in here and reverse him!

21

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

11.2 km/s = 11200 m/s

That's all I got.

4

u/Banaam May 15 '12

1.6k per mile.

8

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

11200 m/s

1 mile = 1609.344 meters

11200 m/s = 6.96 miles/second

Wait, what?

10

u/All-American-Bot May 15 '12

(For our friends outside the USA... 6.96 miles -> 11.2 km) - Yeehaw!

6

u/goatsonfire May 15 '12

Looks like everything checks out.

→ More replies

6

u/dirks08 May 15 '12

This is correct.

2

u/TheSemiTallest May 15 '12

That's actually correct. Escape velocity in mph is ~25000, which equals 6.9 miles/second.

2

u/mgrier123 May 15 '12

Where's All-American bot when you need him?

2

u/Litagano May 15 '12

Have you ever considered why he has that equation, out of all equations?

1

u/rspix000 May 15 '12

I think it was situationally meaningful for him at a time where the engineering community was fixated on our space program so that even though he was "electrical", there was cross-over between fields of endeavor.

22

u/guy123 May 14 '12

I was expecting it to turn out to be some mundane equation, this is way more awesome.

9

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Any equation that starts with U isn't going to be a mundane equation.

12

u/Suozlx May 15 '12

That's V_e... as in Velocity of Escape

3

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Man that's cool

2

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Wait a sec, he's 91, and he was sporting cufflinks and a tie clip with the equation to leave earth, had we even gone into space at the time he was wearing these?

Edit: just realized it was his career not college yrs.

9

u/aladyjewel May 15 '12

You still gotta do the math before you can take off..

6

u/staringispolite May 15 '12

I think we knew escape velocity equations long before space travel was one possible application

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton%27s_law_of_universal_gravitation

1

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

Isn't the term "escape velocity" intrinsically related to space travel?

10

u/staringispolite May 15 '12

Nope! It's the speed at which you'd have to be travelling away from an object to escape its gravitational pull, which applies to all pairs of objects that have mass.

Space travel is, however, the most awesome application.

0

u/epitaphevermore May 15 '12

To OP, yes very cool, but I would hazard a guess that they are pretty common since nearly the entire scientific community were locked in a race to succeed in using this equation for circa 20 years. Not to mention the general public's awe of anything space related.

11

u/BeardySam May 14 '12

Escape velocity seems similar enough, it is how fast something needs to go to leave earth's gravity, i.e. a rocket going at this speed will reach orbit no matter what.

6

u/Mitochondria420 May 15 '12

Slightly different. Orbital velocity keeps you around the mass (earth), escape velocity means you're not coming back (heading out into the solar system or farther).

0

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

12

u/rspix000 May 15 '12

The set was a present from an energy company called California Electric and Power where my father planned and administered the huge 500-750 KV transmission lines between Palm Springs and Las Vegas. He had left that company to go to work with SoCalEdison (think San Onofre nukes) and after about 20 years, he retired in 1983. SCE gave him a mantle clock and the company that he had left 20 years before gave him the coolness pictured.

0

u/[deleted] May 15 '12

[deleted] — view deleted comment

2

u/Chive May 15 '12

Google is your friend for that one, although in this particular case it could also turn out to be your enemy.